


Live Long and Prosper

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Jokes, F/M, Fandom, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:35:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Kendra wasn't expecting Leonard Snart to be a sympathetic ear.Or - and this is more surprising - a fandom nerd.(she's always had a bit of a thing for nerds...)





	Live Long and Prosper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TerraYoung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraYoung/gifts).



> for terrayoung for the dccwrarepairswap, for the prompt: Kendra/Leonard; they discover they're the only ones on the Waverider that like something and bond over it

“Okay,” Snart says, walking into Kendra’s room with two cups and a thermos. “Let’s talk about it.”

Kendra blinks owlishly at him from where she’s sitting on the bed. “Uh,” she says. “I don’t really feel like drinking…”

Snart snags her one chair with a foot and yanks it forward, sitting down and totally ignoring her. He pours out the contents of the thermos, which are –

“Is that hot chocolate?”

“With mini marshmallows,” he confirms. 

Kendra makes grabby-hands, even though she knows it’s childish. Mercifully, Snart doesn’t comment.

He hands her the cup.

“So let’s talk about it,” he says.

“About Aldus?” she asks. “I don’t want to.”

“Trust me, neither do I,” Snart says. “But I figure it’s me or that guy who keeps butting into your personal space, and between the two, I figure you’d be better with a stranger.”

“Carter isn’t…” Kendra’s voice trails off.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Snart replies. “Trust me, my little sis has dated enough assholes – or, more to the point, my sister has _broken up_ with enough assholes - for me to know one when I see one. Why’re you still with ol’ CH?”

“We’re soulmates.”

“Not a good reason. Next?”

“Uh,” Kendra says. “We…apparently had a child together in a past life?”

Snart quirks an eyebrow at her. “That’s just a fancy way of saying soulmates again,” he says. “A concept, FYI, that I don’t believe in.”

“We literally reincarnate and fall in love in every lifetime,” she points out. “That seems like pretty good evidence.”

“No,” Snart says, “it seems like pretty good evidence that you were both hit with the same magic bullet and then consistently bond over the same shitty circumstances. Or are you saying that Savage is also your soulmate?”

Kendra shudders.

Snart smirks triumphantly.

Just to be contrary, Kendra says, “I mean. I guess he could be.”

Snart raises his eyebrows. “Oh, you wanna play, huh? Fine. Unlike you and CH, Savage has a magic sense for tracking the two of you down _and_ he’s apparently been in love with you, continuously, for thousands of years. According to CH, you guys just bump into each other, coincidence-like, unless Savage gets you first, which means out of the three of you, Savage is the most likely to track you down. That seems pretty damn soulmate-like, if you take a certain stalking-like approach to soulmates.”

“Oh god,” Kendra says, making a face. “No. Stalking is not love. I volunteered at a domestic violence clinic. _No_. All the no.”

“So you’re clearly not soulmates with the _other_ guy you meet every lifetime,” Snart says. “So why are you with CH?”

“His name is Carter,” Kendra points out, eliding the question.

“His last name is Hall,” Snart shoots back, unruffled. “And so CH is appropriate. Why’re you dodging?”

Kendra sighs. “I broke up with a really nice guy to go with Carter because I couldn’t give up on the whole soulmate idea, and now I feel like…I don’t know.”

“You put your eggs in this basket, so now you have to lie in it?”

“I’m entirely sure that isn’t the way that saying goes,” Kendra says. “But yeah.”

“That’s crap,” Snart notes.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “It is. But every time I think about breaking up with him, he keeps going on about how I haven’t remembered my past lives enough yet, and how we’ve gotten together two hundred and eight times before –”

“I know people who break up and get back together more than that in a year,” Snart says dismissively. “Has it occurred to you that he’s done it before?”

“What, Savage?”

“No, CH,” Snart says. “Soulmates is a hell of a convincing argument, and it seems like he gets his memories faster than you do. So maybe in your past lives, he’s done the same show up and sweet-talk shtick.”

“…possible,” Kendra says, then sighs. “But you’re telling me I fell for it _every time_?”

“Why not?”

Kendra rolls her eyes.

“Even if you are soulmates, it doesn’t give him the right to be a dick,” Snart says. It sounds like it pains him to talk about feelings.

Kendra narrows her eyes at him, belatedly suspicious. “Why are you being nice?”

“Mick made me,” Snart says immediately.

“And why did Mick make you?”

Snart rolls his eyes. “He gets weird ideas.”

“Like what?”

“He thinks we’d get along,” Snart says. “I apparently 'need more friends'.”

Kendra’s eyebrows go up. 

“He’s known me since I was fourteen and four foot six,” Snart says. “He gets to do that sort of thing.”

“Heh. I bet you were a shrimp.”

“Says the woman with wings.”

“Wings I don’t know what to _do_ with. Why does Mick think we’d get along?”

Snart sighs, all put-upon. 

“Well?”

“You have a Slytherin scarf,” he begrudgingly confesses. “Do you know how hard it is to find someone involved in this superhero stuff that likes Harry Potter and who _isn’t_ named Cisco Ramon?”

Kendra starts laughing. “No, you’re right,” she says, giggling. “Cisco – he’s actually the guy I dated before Carter – he said he initially got interested in me because I had my Enterprise earrings on one day.”

“Star Trek too, huh? Best captain?”

“Picard, but TOS is a better series.”

Snart nods approvingly. “Nice. Though I always had a soft spot for DS9, myself…” 

“You’re a nerd,” Kendra says, understanding striking like lightning. “You’re a total _nerd_.”

"Tell anyone and I'll deny it," Snart says, but he's smiling, just a bit.

Kendra scoots closer. "Tell me what other series you like."

"Well -"

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That had better be alcoholic," Kendra says darkly, her knees pulled up to her chest.

Snart, who's just come in with another thermos, doesn't bat an eyelash. "Hot cocoa," he says. "But yes, it's Irish."

"I wanted to dump him, not for him to _die_ ," Kendra replies bitterly.

"And now you feel like you shouldn't have been ready to dump him."

Kendra sighs.

"Your 'But I love him!' wasn't subtle," Snart says. "Smacked of guilt, actually."

Kendra buries her head in her hands. "What if that _was_ it?" she mutters. "What if he was my soulmate, and there's never going to be another chance to -"

"Actually," Snart drawls, cutting through her escalating self-pity. "That's not something you should worry about."

Kendra looks up at him with a frown.

"First off, that's the refrain of everyone who's been broken up with, ever," Snart says. “You must know that.”

"Yes, but -"

"Second, you’ve got less grounds for it than most."

"I'd think I have _more_ grounds, " Kendra says, unable to keep from being drawn into the debate even though she knows Snart is doing it to distract her from her _entirely justified_ angsty fest of self-pity. "Jointly reincarnating hawk-people is such a small pool of potential matches, you know?"

"Ah, but that's precisely the reason you don't," Snart says triumphantly.

Kendra crosses her arms and arches her eyebrows.

"Said it yourself; he reincarnates. We have a time ship. We can jump along to the next time he's at the age you find most attractive - mid-twenties, early thirties, maybe older if you like 'em that way, whatever - and pick him up then."

Kendra's surprised into a snort of laughter. "That's terrible," she says. "I can't just pick a designer version of him!"

"Why not?"

"I just can't, it would be _weird_!"

"That sounds like a _you_ problem."

"Oh, man," Kendra says, starting to laugh in earnest. "Just imagine if we stopped everywhere along the timeline and picked up another set of Carter and me. We could be like Attack of the Clones."

"Now _that_ would be weird," Snart says, wrinkling his nose, but there's a grin tugging at his lips.

"That," Kendra says with great dignity, barely suppressing her laughter long enough to do it, "sounds like a _you_ problem."

Snart gives in and smiles. "Imagine that," he says. "If we did that, you could dogpile Savage. One of you is _bound_ to get in a hit. Eventually."

"Now I'm stuck wondering why the _rest_ of you are here," Kendra says. "I'm clearly the MVP of this team. Magic Savage-killing fingers and all."

"I'm not sure if you've noticed," Snart says dryly, "but Rip Hunter isn't the most competent of planners. More of a Han Solo than a Leia Organa."

"Nah," Kendra says. "Not even. At least Han Solo had _luck_."

"Maybe even the Force," Snart agrees.

"Oh, you've seen that theory, too?" she asks, beaming when he nods. "What do you think? Han Solo, accidental Force user - yes or no?"

"I'm of two minds. On one hand, it'd explain away the lazy filmmaking and add a lot more context - you know the EU at all?"

"Certainly."

"On the other hand, that inadvertently implies that virtually _everyone_ useful in that universe has to have the Force to be competent -"

"Well, if you take the Force the way it's described in the original trilogy -"

\-------------------------------------------------------

Ray Palmer was flirting.

So was Jax, but Kendra's not going to lie - even if he was the only one trying his hand, Jax is _way_ too young for her. She does, as Snart joked, like them older. Even Carter had been at least thirty four. Well, he'd said he was, though she suspected he was maybe a little older.

Not that it would've been a big problem for her if he was. It was just another example of him deciding _for_ her that she'd have a problem with it, and acting in line with what he thought she wanted rather than what she actually wanted.

But she's not thinking of Carter now.

No, she's thinking of Ray.

Sweet, charming, nerdy Ray, who is totally her type. Sure, he's in his early forties - _like Snart_ , a traitorous voice inside her head whispers - but she likes them around that age, when they'd either gotten over the worst of their personality traits or let them sink in.

Either way, they were a lot more 'take me as I am', which Kendra appreciates.

So she flirts back with Ray, just enough to see Jax withdraw from the field and give a small sigh of relief. She didn't want to have to talk to him directly about it; she wasn't a fan of confrontation.

Of course, she's on a mission to kill a super-stalker psychopath that only she can kill, so clearly Kendra is going to have to get over her distaste for confrontation any time now.

She brings that up in one of her late-night cocoa talks with Snart and they end up discussing the psychology of the reluctant heroes for three hours.

(As a real life supervillain, Snart has an interesting perspective on the subject, to say the least.)

Still, Ray’s nice. Nerdy, the way she likes it.

She kisses him once or twice after a mission.

When they're stranded together in the 1950s, Sara gives up on rescue almost immediately. Kendra inspects the area instead, because while she might doubt the crew, she knows that Snart would never leave her stranded.

Or Hunter, because he needs her to kill Savage.

Which is what she should have thought of _first_ , damnit.

This crush is getting entirely out of hand.

"I found marks on the ground," she reports to a bickering Ray and Sara. Ray was objecting to Sara's means of getting them a car (illegally) which Kendra thought was a bit naïve of him. Cute, but naïve. 

"So?" Sara asks.

"Two sets of marks," Kendra clarifies. "I think Kronos attacked again."

“So maybe the reason they ditched us here is because they’re dead,” Sara says. “Great.”

“You give up way too easy,” Kendra tells her. 

Sara crosses her arms. It’s more of a teenager’s pout than a mature woman’s reaction, but whatever, Kendra’s not going to comment.

“At least this gets us time for you to teach me how to kill Savage,” Kendra points out. “And we have a basic idea of where he was, so we could try to track him down again and finish the mission without the rest of the Waverider –” Rip, mostly. “- interfering.”

Sara’s intrigued. Not much, unfortunately; she's prone to hopelessness and dramatic gestures, which tend not to work well with practical planning. 

Ray, annoyingly enough, is slightly disappointed by Kendra’s suggestion that they all find a house together to wait for help. He spends most of his time working on a device to summon the Waverider, yes, but he also wants to play house with Kendra. He doesn’t seem to realize how awkward doing that makes things for Sara.

“Baby,” Kendra says. “You can’t get me lilies. Sara hates lilies.”

“I thought you’d like them…?”

“Ray. Sara lives in our house. I know you were trying to do something nice for _me_ , but you have to think about the fact that we have three people in the house.”

Sara was currently masquerading as Ray’s unmarried younger sister for propriety purposes. 

“I kind of wish we were a decade or so forward,” Ray says wistfully. “We could catch the first screening of Star Wars.”

Kendra thinks about how they’re eight years away from the first showing of Star Trek, six from the first Man From Uncle, and winces. “Agreed,” she says. “Who’s your favorite character?”

He grins at her, clearly trying for a bit of a swagger. “I was always a Han Solo guy, myself.”

Kendra can’t help but smile. “What’s your view on whether he has the Force?”

Ray blinks, losing the swagger. “Why would he have the Force?”

“Because he’s so lucky.”

“The movie doesn’t say he has the Force.”

“Yes,” Kendra says patiently. It’s not like she didn’t know he wasn’t familiar with the Star Wars Extended Universe. “But do you think he could have it without knowing about it?”

Ray shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “The movie doesn’t say he has it. Luke has it. And Leia.”

"Yes, but imagine -"

"I don't know," Ray says skeptically. "Over-analyzing movies seems to ruin the magic, don't you think?"

Kendra sighs. "I like discussing alternative possibilities," she says gently.

"We can do that," Ray chirps. "Say, do you think those monster movies - Attack of the Killer Tomato and stuff - are out yet?"

"Not quite what I meant, Ray..."

She eventually managed to get some discussion out of him, but by and large Ray prided himself more on knowing every detail of a movie - the lines, the scenes, all of that - than in discussing it further.

He also gets a job teaching in university, while Kendra is obligated to pick between garden nursery supervisor, librarian, and kindergarten teacher. And even those positions weren't exactly that easy to find, even with fudged records - being a black woman in the 1950s when you’re accustomed to the post-third-wave feminism and nuanced racial understanding (however flawed) of the 2010s is the _worst_.

Maybe she could get a job copy-editing in NASA and get a famous actress to play her in Hidden Figures; that’s getting started around this time, right? Ray would like working in NASA. Even Sara would think it was cool.

"Maybe I should leave," Sara says a few days later.

"You leave and by God I will hunt you down," Kendra says through gritted teeth.

Sara pauses. "You don’t want to be left in happy coupledom with Ray?"

"It's the 1950s," Kendra says flatly. "I'm a woman, and I'm black. Ray has a group of friends - I use the term lightly - that pat him on the back for being so progressive for marrying me, because I'm apparently, quote, 'really hot for a colored woman', end quote, and he feels like he now understands racism because someone said something mean to him about us being 'married' once. _Once_."

"...ouch."

"At least he likes movies," Kendra says with a sigh. "Replays of Universal Pictures’ monster movie series are my rock in these hard times."

"Have you talked to Ray about this?"

"A few times," Kendra says. "Not as much as I should; I'm not really great with confrontation, y’know? I made it very clear that we're not _actually_ married, though. I'm pretty sure we're not even dating anymore."

"That seems like something you should be clear on," Sara says.

"I wish Snart were here," Kendra says unthinkingly - she's thought it so many times, it's almost not shocking to say, and she doesn't realize she's said it aloud until Sara blinks at her.

" _Snart_?" Sara asks, wrinkling her nose. "Ugh. Why _him_?"

Kendra's mind jumps straight to the way his eyes light up, soft and fond and passionate, when they're talking about the shows and movies they like. How he never raises his voice, no matter how intensely they argue, and how she learned more about self-control from him than a hundred of Sara's lessons in fighting. She thinks of his smile, hard to win but worth it, the stories he shares about Mick that make the gruff arsonist come off as practically cuddly, the fluid way he moves his hands, his cleverness, his _face_ -

"Uh," Kendra says. "Well, he's a thief. We'd probably be living in a New York City penthouse or an island in the Caribbean by now."

Sara cracks a grin. "Oh, man. Unleashing Leonard Snart on the '50s would just be _mean_. To the timeline."

"But oh so much fun for _us_."

"We could be Hollywood starlets even now, with our deep pocketed producer forcing directors to cast us."

Kendra starts laughing, just imagining what films Leonard would force people to cast and direct. 

Sara's not sure why Kendra finds it so funny, and Kendra can't really explain.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite their conversation, though, Sara does pack up and leave. She doesn’t give them a destination.

Ray is sad for her to leave, but Sara's not gone two days before he proposes they start having a weekly date night.

"As friends," Kendra says firmly.

Ray pouts. "Is this because you're waiting for Carter?" he asks.

"No," Kendra says. "It's because we're _friends_. And I've never lost faith in our _other_ friends coming and picking us up, okay?"

"What does that have to do with whether or not we have a relationship?" Ray asks, honestly puzzled. "Is there something I can do -"

"Ray," Kendra says, putting her hands on his shoulders. "We're two cords with only partially compatible plugs. You deserve a wholly compatible plug."

"That makes absolutely no sense mechanically," Ray says. "But - I think I understand."

He's brave and tragic about it for a few weeks - apparently there is something worse than being Ray's 'hot colored wife', and it's being Ray's 'hot colored bitch of a wife that dumped him' - but true to form, he gets over it and they can _finally_ start being friends.

"You propose actual marriage to me and I kill you," Kendra says sweetly.

"Maybe I just like looking at rings," Ray replies, grinning. 

"Kill. You."

"Speaking of which, you haven't, uh, stretched your wings recently. Want to go to the Grand Canyon? We've saved up some."

"Hell yes," Kendra says. Removing the romantic filter Ray had been using - where everything was happy and wonderful and nourished by their mutual romantic joy, and nothing could ever be bad - was apparently necessary for him to start noticing things about other people. Like depression and misery. 

Kendra's wings had definitely not been getting enough use.

"We should have a Halloween party," Kendra says. “I’ll go as Chay-ara, the Hawk Goddess. I'll get a cheap knock-off Cleopatra dress for it.”

"We totally should," Ray replies. “Can I be a mummy?”

Friends with Ray Palmer.

Who'd have thought.

Still, when the Waverider shows up, Kendra leaps in. "Jeans!" she crows. "Well-fitting jeans that don't cost a million bucks! A washing machine that actually works! Proper coffee! Ray, the _Internet_ is back!"

"Movies," Ray says blissfully. "All the glorious movies."

"Where's Snart?" Kendra asks. "I've got, like, a ton of original edition Masters of Science Fiction books signed that I want to show him. Asimov, Bester, the works."

Rip looks awkward.

That's when she finds out Snart was kidnapped by Kronos.

But, luckily, their two years in the 50s had only been twelve hours for the rest of them, so there was still hope of rescuing him.

Or, as Kendra learns in Nanda Parbat, of him rescuing himself and them.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why'd you try to set us up in the first place?" Kendra asks Mick, sitting in the cell.

"What?"

"Snart said you'd forced him to come talk to me because you said we'd get along."

Mick stares at her. "Not exactly the question I thought you'd go with, birdie."

"Well, I figure everyone else has covered the 'what happened, why did you, why not stop' parts," Kendra says. "Also I lived with Ray Palmer for _two years_ because of you. I figure trying a page from his book of the cheerfully, charmingly self-obsessed wouldn't hurt."

Mick snorts despite himself. 

"So," Kendra says. "Snart, me. What was your goal?"

"You dating Palmer now?" Mick asks instead.

"I would kill him if he tried," Kendra says. "We're just friends."

"You use the phrase 'kill' a lot more freely now," Mick observes.

"You know what's good for murderous rage?" Kendra says. "Living in the 1950s and not being able to advocate for change too quickly, that’s what. Do you know how excited I was when Mary Tyler Moore started to make pants a thing? It was sad."

Mick is having some trouble keeping his face straight.

"You couldn't have even ditched us somewhere good," Kendra continues dramatically. "Mick. _Mick_. I didn't even have _Star Trek_. It was still six years away when I left. It wasn't even a twinkle in Gene Roddenberry's eye."

Mick is having a _lot_ of trouble keeping his face straight. It’s not very Kronos-like at all.

Len was totally right about Mick having a great sense of humor.

“I didn’t even have Man from UNCLE,” Kendra says, throwing her hands up and pretending to swoon. “And I even missed all the good 50s movies! We got there too late for Singing in the Rain or Forbidden Planet or even The Day the Earth Stood Still. You know what I had? I had Ben-Hur. _Ben-Hur_.”

“Pretty sure North by Northwest came out around that time,” Mick says diplomatically.

“Ray and I literally threw a party when Some Like it Hot came out,” Kendra says flatly. “An actual honest-to-god party. We had canapés.”

Mick has to put his hand on his mouth. 

“Ray wore a dress,” she adds. “My dress, actually. I was angry for days; he stretched it all out.”

Mick finally cracks and starts laughing. 

Kendra smirks.

“That’s why,” he says, wiping his eyes. 

“That’s why, what?”

“You and Snart. You’re both drama queens,” Mick says. “Figured you’d get along.”

“I mean, we do,” Kendra says. “We’re friends.”

Mick sighs. “Maybe it’s the time I spent travelling through time for the Time Masters,” he says, “but I just don’t have the patience for this. Do you, or do you not, want to bang Snart like a porch door in a hurricane? Possibly while discussing dumbass sci-fi television shows?”

“They’re not dumb,” Kendra protests immediately, then flushes bright red. 

“Knew it,” Mick crows. “He does too. Go forth and _get it on_.”

“You don’t even like us right now!” Kendra yelps. “Stop trying to hook us up!”

“At this point, _I’ll take the win_.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

“Tell me,” Kendra says, curled up in Len’s arms. He preferred Len to Snart in private, apparently. “Do you two always solve your problems by beating each other up?”

“Mostly,” Len says, shifting a little so she won’t rest on his bruises. “It’s a bad habit that I think we’re starting to get too old for.”

“You _think_?”

“Hey, it’s worked for us so far.”

“Do you also regularly try to set each other up on dates while attempting to murder each other?”

“Mick said he didn’t kill me for two reasons,” Len says. “One, he’s confused and angry and doesn’t know what to do now that the Time Masters don’t have their boot at his throat, with whatever the hell they did to his mind.” She can hear the anger in Len’s voice, and only part of it is still aimed at himself. “Two, he said killing me before we got together would defeat the whole point of doing it.”

“He has a point,” Kendra agrees. “I like you alive.”

“Did you really give him photos of Palmer in a dress?”

“Yeah, we had a Canonflex SLR. Top of the line for the 1950s.”

“He’s _still_ sniggering about it,” Len says. He sounds slightly bemused by it all.

“Good,” Kendra says. Mick and Ray were getting along surprisingly well; Len had been sneakily drawing on all of her parent-trap fic tropes to try to encourage it for the last week straight. “Now, please, for the love of god, let’s talk about something fandom that isn’t from the 1950s.”

Len grins – an actual grin, crooked and teeth showing, not his usual smirk. “Well,” he drawls. “If you ask so nicely…”

\---------------------------------------------------------

“I keep getting flashbacks to my past lives with Carter,” Kendra tells Len, because open disclosure is important in a relationship. 

Or so Len says, anyway.

(Honestly, at this point, Kendra would feel bad _not_ disclosing important details after Len’s _excruciatingly painful_ list of “why you shouldn’t date me I’m an awful person with a terrible backstory”.)

Len blinks. “Okay,” he says. “It come with an emotional contingent that makes you want to get back together with him?”

“Yes,” Kendra says. “And it’s _annoying_ , because I remember how much of an ass he was to me. But little Miss Me from the 1940s thought that was him being _dashing_.”

“Ah, feminism.”

“Past me had such low standards,” Kendra grouses. “So. Many. Times. You were right, by and by, about him always getting his memories back first. Did I tell you about the time he _bought_ me?”

“He _what_?”

“Pre American Civil War, if you get my gist.”

Len makes a horrified face.

“Yeah, the whole ‘master frees you and marries you’ thing is even _less_ romantic when you’re living it. I’m pretty sure the whole community thought Savage killing us was justified.”

“Awkward.”

“No kidding. Anyway. Just an FYI.”

“I’ll be sure not to hold it against you if you start shouting his name in bed,” Len says solemnly. “Say, which name will it be? Carter? Joe? Khufu? Bob? I’d like to think he was a Bob, once. Maybe a Dick.”

Kendra starts giggling. “Maybe I’ll switch it up each time.”

“It’ll be like an episode of Sliders gone horribly wrong.”

“Maybe I’ll do them all at once, to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

“Syndey-Carter-Freddy-Lester-Eddie-Ali-Douglas?”

“Oh. My. God. That _scans_ , you bastard.”

\---------------------------------------------------------

“What do I do now?” Kendra asks. “There’s a _Carter clone_. Except his name is Scythian Torvil – I assume he got beaten up a lot as a child this time around? – and he presumably has a whole bunch of memories I don’t. I feel like I owe him some obligation to break the brainwashing, you know? But at the same time, he’ll probably assume that I want to get back together…”

“Why are you asking me?” Sara says helplessly.

“Because everyone else is useless,” Kendra says. “Obviously.”

Sara crosses her arms. “Useless, how?”

Kendra raises a finger. “Ray thinks I should get back together with Carter because it would be a narratively satisfying arc.”

“Uh, it would _not_ ,” Sara says. “It’s only narratively satisfying if you put yourself in the _guy’s_ shoes, c’mon already.”

“He’s trying, Sara. I saw him reading a book on privilege yesterday.”

“Only because Mick told him he had to.”

“Well, yes,” Kendra says. “Ray is ridiculous when he’s trying to win someone’s attention and interest and Mick is taking full advantage of that to educate him. I don’t see the problem. _I_ should’ve done that.”

“Give yourself a break,” Sara says. “It was the 1950s. There weren’t any books on cis straight white male privilege yet.”

“I know, I know, but still. As I was saying,” she lifts a second finger, “Rip doesn’t actually give a damn about any of my issues except insofar as we stop Savage. Now that Savage is in the brig with evidence that he manipulated time, he’s super excited about bringing him into the Time Masters and getting _both_ his family _and_ his old job back. Question about Carter are just annoying to him.”

Sara nods.

Third finger. “Jax just starts running the other direction every time I show up, saying he’s not ready for this.”

Sara snorts. “Maybe I should do that.”

“You can’t; I’ve locked the door.”

“I like this new, assertive Kendra,” Sara says. “Very sexy.”

“Shush. I tried to ask Stein, but…well. He married his first serious girlfriend out of college and they’ve been disgustingly happily married science nerds for half of forever. He has literally _no idea_ what you do with conflict. Or people that you don’t want to date that want to date you. He tried to compare it to that one time an undergrad developed an awkward crush on him.”

Sara laughs. “I assume _you_ started running away at that point?”

“Got it in one.”

“Well, why don’t you ask Snart or Rory?” Sara asks. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to ask Snart, but Rory…?”

“I asked Mick,” Kendra says with a sigh. 

“And?”

“He’s in favor of killing Savage now and letting Scythian go back to his timeline.”

“I mean…”

“Yes, I _know_ it makes sense! I just feel _bad_ about it!”

“What about Snart? He threatened by it?”

“He suggested a threesome,” Kendra sighs. “So I could see what I really wanted.”

Sara’s eyebrows go up. “Snart offered you a threesome with two hot guys and you said no? Is that threesome offer open for girls, too? Snart’s a dick, but he’s pretty…”

“I don’t _want_ to sleep with Carter! Or Scythian! Or whatever!”

“Then don’t,” Sara says logically. “You can rescue the guy because he’s your ex and you don’t want him to be horribly brainwashed without wanting to get back together. If Snart’s not threatened, you shouldn’t be.”

“I guess.”

“But, seriously, let’s kill Savage.”

“Rip won’t let us,” Kendra says glumly. “See: getting his old job back. Consider us _ditched_ the second that happens, by the way.”

“No kidding,” Sara says, also sighing. “Well, it was fun while it lasted. Are you happy now? Can we stop talking feelings and get back to hitting each other with sticks in a nice, emotionally stoic womanly fashion?”

“Yes,” Kendra says, getting up to unlock the door. “That sounds nice.”

“Also, seriously, regarding that threesome…”

“ _Sara_.”

“What? He’s hot, you’re hot, and I’m bi!”

“You’re _insatiable_ , that’s what you are.”

"Don't forget indiscriminate," Sara says with a grin. "Insatiable, indiscriminate - I need another 'i' word."

"Irritating?"

"Oh, you're going _down_ , Miss Feather-butt -"

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Kendra decks Carter – sorry, _Scythian_ – in the face when he suggests getting back together after Savage is finally dead. Then she knees him in the balls. Then she –

Mick grabs her around the waist and walks away while she’s still wiggling frantically in an attempt to go hit Scythian some more. “Calm down, birdie,” he says. 

“Let me _go_ , Mick!”

“It’s not his fault Snart did what he did,” Mick says gruffly. “You don’t have to take it out on him.”

“If I hadn’t been so _stupid_ as to _let him live_ –” That part was shouted over Mick’s shoulder at a still-moaning Scythian. “– then we wouldn’t have been there in the first place!”

“Yes,” Mick says quietly. “We would have.”

Kendra stops struggling. “Mick…”

“The Time Masters had a plan for Savage,” he says. His voice is still too quiet. “Trust me when I say they wouldn’t have stopped once we’d succeeded. They would have kept going – and going, and going – until they got us all under their thumbs. And we wouldn’t have been prepared for it, neither; Snart wouldn’t have gotten him and Sara to a hiding place because he’s a paranoid fuck, and then we’d all be in their cages and in their chairs and back under their boot-heels.”

“Mick,” Kendra says. “You know – you know it’s not _your_ fault, right?”

Mick shrugs. “I’m the one he swapped out for,” he says bitterly. 

“Because you wouldn’t let Ray die,” Kendra says. “Snart understood. You know he did.”

“I know,” Mick says. “That’s why he asked me to forgive him, before he knocked me out.” He swallows, shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“He was your best friend,” Kendra says. “You were friends for _thirty years_. You don’t have to be sleeping together to feel bad about him being gone.” Her back straightens, even though Mick has yet to put her down. Damn, that man is strong. Kendra isn’t _that_ light. “If Ray is giving you _any_ shit about mourning –”

“No, no,” Mick says, cracking a smile. It’s kind of a pathetic smile, but it’s a smile. “He’s being okay. He tried to suggest being partners right afterwards –”

“He _what_.”

“I told him off,” Mick assures her. “He figured out the problem with what he said pretty quick. He’s being better now.”

“I’m still going to punch him,” Kendra says.

“We let you murder one guy and suddenly you’re all violent,” Mick teases, putting her down. “What would –” His voice cuts off.

He’d meant to joke ‘what would Snart think of you now’, probably followed by ‘he’d think it was really hot, actually, he likes violence’. 

They couldn’t make that joke anymore.

Kendra’s eyes fill with tears.

“Don’t turn on the waterworks,” Mick warns. “I don’t –”

She launches herself at him, wings unfolding to give her extra leverage, and wraps her arms around his neck, burying her face into his shoulder, and bursts into tears.

“– do the touchy-feeling stuff,” Mick concludes. After minute, though, he gives in with a sigh, wrapping his arms around him and permitting her to wrap her wings around him in return. 

Kendra lets him pretend that the wetness on her shoulder isn’t his fault. It’s the least she can do after snotting all over his sleeve. She's an ugly crier. 

Oh, Len.

She misses him so much.

Mick tells her stories about him – he was black and Jewish and proud of it, she’d known that, but she hadn’t heard about the holidays that went wrong; Len had never had a chance to tell her about them himself – but it’s not the same.

She _misses_ him.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

“Uh, Kendra?”

“Mick!” Kendra exclaims, bouncing over to her door and embracing him. “What brings you by to my humble apartment? Not here to deal with a local aberration, I hope?”

She’d refused to continue on with the Waverider’s mission, afterwards, while Mick agreed to keep going. Neither of them had held it against each other. 

He’d introduced her to Lisa, though, which had been nice. They were friends now. 

“Depends on how you define it,” he replies, picking her up for a quick hug. He looks better than he did when he left – standing strong and tall and looking healthy. “Local, yes; aberration, also yes; not so much with the ‘dealing with’.”

“What do you mean?”

Mick coughs. “So, the resurrection thing,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“You know how Carter always got his memories first?”

Kendra nods, wondering why it was relevant. Scythian had caught a ride back to their era, insisting on being near Kendra; she’d gotten a restraining order and knocked out one of his teeth before he’d finally gotten the hint that she didn’t want him around. Lisa had threatened to gild his balls.

“Seems like that’s because you wanted him to.”

Kendra frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the one who had the power of reincarnation,” Mick exclaims. “Not him. But as long as you loved him, he reincarnated _for you_.”

Kendra frowns. That would explain why he was always so irritatingly devoted to finding her, in every life. “Okay,” she says. “I _think_ I’m following you.”

“Basically, you each got a power,” Mick says. “You got reincarnation, he got the hawk-powers, and you shared ‘em because you were in love. Savage got immortality as long as he stole your life force each time.”

“Right,” she says. “So, what? You’re telling me I’ll lose the hawk-powers because I'm not dating Carter-Scythian?”

“Next time you reincarnate, yeah, probably.”

“Okay,” Kendra says. Not ideal – she’d kind of gotten used to them – but fine. “I guess I can live with that.”

“Your power of reincarnating still applies, though.”

Kendra blinks. “Okay. Not sure I'm getting your point. Did you meet a future version of me?”

“No,” Mick says. “We met a future version of your boyfriend, though.”

“You mean Carter-Scythian?”

Mick grins, a real, big, broad grin. “Carter Hall wasn’t the guy you were dating.”

“No,” Kendra agrees, a little mystified. “I was dating Len –”

She cuts off.

No.

No, it couldn’t –

There’s a cough at the door.

She turns to look at him. 

“Surprise?” Len says.

Kendra shrieks and pitches herself forward to grab him.

“We figured you wouldn’t want to wait until your next life to meet him,” Mick laughs behind her back. “Guess we figured right, huh?”

Kendra’s too busy kissing Len to respond properly.

He’s _back_.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We’ve really got to do something about meeting like this,” Mick tells her. It’s the year 2455, the middle of the 25th century. 

“Heatstroke,” Kendra says. “ _Heatstroke is a bad thing_. Do not take it as your moniker.”

“It works for me,” Mick says smugly.

“I can’t believe the two of you are now time-travelling policemen,” Kendra grouses. “Willingly!”

“Says the woman who got reborn as a _Thangarian_.”

“At least I’m not going by the name _Commander Cold_.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one dating him.”

“Uuuuuuugh, why do I bring all of you with me every time I reincarnate, again?”

“Beats me,” Len says, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Maybe that one time we tried out the swinging thing did the job? Either way, glad that you do. Isn’t Heatstroke a great name?”

“I hate it,” Kendra declares. “I see why Mick picked it.”

Len sniggers. “We’re still looking for Ray’s reincarnation,” he says. “We’re pretty sure he’s a Kryptonian in this life.”

“You’re joking. Ray reincarnated as _Superman_?”

“Possibly Superboy,” Mick allows. “But definitely a guy wearing an S.”

He’s grinning in anticipation. 

Probably at the potential applications of heat-eyes. 

Kendra starts laughing. 

This life’s gonna be a good one, she can just tell.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Live Long and Prosper [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210050) by [litrapod (litra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litrapod)




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